In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible.

Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity.

Neither science, nor the politics in power, nor the mass media, nor business, nor the law nor even the military are in a position to define or control risks rationally.

All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.

We are living in a world that is beyond controllability.

The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.

Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.

Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.

The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous.

You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances.

You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply.

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.

There is no joy without gratitude.

A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal herself or himself to you, to tell you who they are or what they want.

I miss the movies. Still, I understood that my kind of movie has had its day. I thought it was over for me.

My dad and I get into it all the time. He loves to discuss politics much more than I do and we have pretty heated conversations.

Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me.

We must redefine the American Dream before we rebuild the infrastructure on which it is based.

It's actually four, because the fifth state they get the advantage with a tie. It's literally four states out of 50, 57 if you're [Barack] Obama.

I ran for Congress not because I was having a mid-life crisis. I left the private sector because I saw a looming financial crisis that was coming to this country. It's unsustainable.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.